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WODS: Back to the future?

raccoonradio

raccoonradio

http://www.fybush.com/nerw-20150330/ (Subscription)

OK Marty McFly, Doc Brown here...your mission is to go back to the past and bring back some oldies--er, classic hits--to a certain CBS station. Will it happen?
Get in that Delorean, Marty--you've got to go back...to the future! (Read the column for more...)
 
The only folks who get a job for life are the members of the Supreme Court. At some point, even they have to move on.

Some wonder if the next generation will have the attachment to radio that boomers have. It's hard to develop an attachment to something when all the on-air folks are the age of your grandparents. At some point, the medium needs to bring in fresh blood, and open the airwaves to the new generation it so desperately needs in order to survive. That can't happen as long as the older folks continue to occupy the DJ chairs. As far as the veteran DJs, life happens. They're all at a different stage in their lives, and they realize it. Even Ted Williams had to retire at some point.
 
True (and in terms of talk look at the ages of Howie, Rush, Imus etc). But with WODS the Fybush column says Amp's been struggling a bit
and advertisers were told they may go back to, er "classic hits". There is the new generation, true, but maybe they're getting their music
from other sources and are not that big on radio...again if this SHOULD happen I wouldn't expect sock hop music but maybe heavy on 70s, 80s...(some 60s...)
ROR has been doing well, so why not a "me too" approach, they may be thinking. (Just as iHeart with making 101.7 country)

Never say never--Howie back to RKO? Would never happen. An all sports station...no wait, one or even two of them, on FM? Don't be crazy!
Country music in Boston? Would never work.

...right...?

And a great example of "me too", after WEEI controlled the sports talk/play by play audience someone at CBS thought, you know we have the Pats and the B's, maybe we can try our own sports station and put it on FM where you won't lose a bunch of the audience after sunset. (They later got C's too etc) Worked out pretty well going after the sports audience, didn't it?
 
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At the same time, the Philly board is saying CBS will flip newly acquired "Wired" to AMP. So CBS isn't giving up on AMP. Could it be a double flip?

The problem with classic hits is the age of the audience. So CBS would be giving up on a smaller, younger audience for a larger, older audience. Sometimes, you're better off with smaller and younger. It worked for the Red Sox.
 
Yes I saw headline about the Philly station.
It is true re: age of audience for classic hits but ROR doing well. Do see your point re: smaller and younger audience.
As Bittner used to point out on Let's Talk About Radio the older folks have money and tend to pay things off quickly and not get into credit card nightmares,
unlike the younger folks, and businesses may want to court the younger ones. There's also brand loyalty etc--younger folks may be more fickle while
older ones are set in their ways. You can see why CBS did the "Amp" change 3 yrs ago and it would be interesting if they changed it back. And the story
about what might have been comes to mind...supposedly CBS was very close to changing WODS to "Jack" at one point but Entercom flipped 93.7 to
"Mike", beating them to the punch.
 
If ROR wasn't there, they'd change back. Different situation competing against an established leader, as CC found out with country.
 
Pop music seems to be lacking at the moment.

I like AMP except for the mornings.

I notice the calendar and wonder if they do flip will they do a lot of stunting first ?
 
Good point "if ROR weren't there they would".Of course the country example involves younger people who explore other options for music while older folks might be more inclined to listen to radio.Plus CBS might gamble on it because signal-wise,WODS is no WBWL
(tho there was the move involving the Cape and RI stations...)
 
TheBigA said:
The problem with classic hits is the age of the audience. So CBS would be giving up on a smaller, younger audience for a larger, older audience. Sometimes, you're better off with smaller and younger. It worked for the Red Sox.
Click to expand...

All very true. A big challenge for AMP has been all of the competition since coming on the air. Pre-AMP, Kiss and Jam'n were the only stations really going after a younger audience. Since then, we've seen Evolution come and go, and Hot 96.9 grab part of the audience too. At the same time, Magic has leaned a lot younger, while a lot of artist and song duplication has arisen between AMP and Mix. AMP has gone head-to-head with Kiss for a talk-heavy morning show, which arguably was the wrong choice. When AMP launched, it was something rather unique on the dial -- a music-heavy and more rhythmic rival to Kiss. These days, it just doesn't stick out as much.

If 103.3 were to return to classic hits... becoming the younger alternative to WROR might be a unique path to go, with more of an 80's/90's playlist. KIHT/St. Louis was doing this with a fair amount of success before flipping to a dull adult CHR format a few weeks ago.
 
raccoonradio said:
So something younger than '70s and 80s' but younger than '80s,90s,and today'? 80s 90s focus with some 70s?
Click to expand...

Exactly! With live mornings and automation throughout the day, it worked for well for KIHT in their battle against iHeart's KLOU -- which essentially runs a WROR playlist. In some ways, a Jack FM, minus the 2000s.

CBS could bring back WODS exactly as it was, but that wouldn't solve the demographic issues that led it to go away in the first place. Moving the concept musically forward, and thus, younger, would be a start.
 
It is interesting that Amp Radio never gave up the WODS call letters, unlike other CBS Top 40 Amp stations which sought new call signs. Once upon a time, those call letters indicated Oldies. Of course, if the station ever did return to Classic Hits, no one would call them Oldies.

I can understand the speculation. For the first time in who knows how long, WROR is #1. And not only is Kiss missing from the #1 slot, it's all the way down to #4! The whole rationale for WODS to move from Classic Hits/Oldies to Top 40 was because Kiss was so strong and most large markets have two Top 40 stations.

Of course, I never viewed WODS and WROR as direct competitors. WROR sort of has one foot in Classic Hits/Oldies and one foot in Classic Rock. WROR never (or almost never) plays Michael Jackson, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Gloria Estefan or any rhythmic artist commonly heard on today's Classic Hits/Oldies stations, including WODS before the switch. WROR avoids jingles and, while not as hard-edged as WZLX, probably shares more of its playlist with Classic Rock than most stations that call themselves Classic Hits. On the other hand, very few markets have more than one Classic Hits station, even if one leans Classic Rock and one leans more pop.

So my guess is, CBS will stick it out with Top 40 on WODS.
 
why does it have to be wods? why not mix? there half way there just drop today's music and bring back 80's music!!
 
Gregg. said:
I can understand the speculation. For the first time in who knows how long, WROR is #1.
Click to expand...

That may become a meaningless #1 soon if that audience is aging into their late forties and fifties and sponsors no longer want to target ads to them. Sheer numbers aren't as important in the business as the desired ad demographic.

Gregg. said:
The whole rationale for WODS to move from Classic Hits/Oldies to Top 40 was because Kiss was so strong and most large markets have two Top 40 stations.
Click to expand...

That's not the whole rationale. Reportedly, WODS is now billing much higher in total ad revenue with half the numbers of twenty-somethings listening than it was with twice the numbers of fifty-somethings listening.
 
raccoonradio said:
Yes...1970 was 45 yrs ago, 1990 was 25 yrs ago. Try for that generation (gen x?) w 80s, 90s.
Click to expand...

They should regard Toronto's successful CKBM (Boom 97.3), which does well with Gen-Xers, is pop based 70s-80s-90s with a focus on the 80s. Great sounding, personality-infused station. WROR sounds so dry to my ear.
 
Hmm, post by Dave Mac on facebook speculated WODS numbers are bad and CBS is just waiting for the Sox contract to end at Entercom so that they can launch a "Sports Hub 2" with 103.3...wouldn't that dilute the audience though? btw remember in 06 outlets like the Globe mentioned Greater was considering getting Sox rights and putting them on 92.9 (Sox could be part owner) which would become the city's first sports FM. Instead Entercom re-upped with Sox; flagship WRKO in time for 07 championship season. CBS launched Sports Hub in Aug of 09. A month later, Ent. suddenly made WEEI 850 the flagship again...then 2 yrs later, Sept of '11, WEEI went to 93.7 (simulcast, before the AM went ESPN).I remember on a Sunday, 9-11-11, there were observances of 9/11's 10th anniversary, then at 6 am the next day Mike 93.7 ended with Free Bird leading into D&C.

Mar '06:
>> http://www.boston.com/sports/baseba...06/03/18/sox_look_to_move_broadcasts_to_wbos/
>>The Red Sox are negotiating with the owner of radio station WBOS to take an ownership stake in the station and move its radio broadcast rights there, a move that would effectively end the team's relationship with Boston's dominant sports station, WEEI.
 
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